


Goddess Boys

by BoyMother



Category: Original Work
Genre: Boywife, Dark Fantasy, Family Drama, High Fantasy, Human/Monster Romance, M/M, Magic, Male Pregnancy, Medieval, Medieval Fantasy, Monsters, Motherhood, Mpreg, Multi, Multiple Plotlines, Mythical Beings & Creatures, POV Multiple, Post-Apocalypse, Teratophilia, Violence, boy mothers, femboy, multiple characters, soft boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26040079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoyMother/pseuds/BoyMother
Summary: Five Boys with a special gift struggle to survive and find peace in a fallen world filled with monsters, knights, and magic.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Goddess Boys

Rowan’s verdant eyes glared with the same steely focus they’d always had ever since the day he killed his father. Such attentive eyes were a necessity deep in the Evergrowth, where monsters and tribes of strange magical natures roamed freely. The Empire’s tales told of only a fraction of these; the manticore, the centaur, the dragon, among others. Rowan had seen many more while living in the Evergrowth, and even to him its vastness teemed with yet unknown life. A wary eye, a quiet step, and at least a bit of strength were all essential to survival here, and Rowan was not without any. His mind had adapted to the forest, mirroring his body’s transformation, and he felt certain that he would never again be able to return above to the kingdom.   
And yet here he was, at the edge of the Evergrowth, ascending towards civilization, or what was left of it. It was almost like a regular forest here. The trees were a more reasonable size, there was ground not overtaken with moss where one could see the dirt, and generous sunlight piercing the relatively thin canopy. Every now and then they would pass a crumbling stone structure, a watchpost or housing for stationed soldiers, a reminder that this borderland was once taken from the Goddess. Like so much else, it was now being reclaimed. Rowan reasoned that the entirety of the kingdom would look like this in a century, give or take a decade. The thought confused his heart. The kingdom had once been his home in a happier time. Its gradual erosion emphasized just how gone that time was now. He had always known this but tried not to dwell on it. At the same time, the kingdom’s disappearance was a sure victory over his father, whose legacy would soon be buried and forgotten. Time would pass as surely as it always had, creating, transforming, and erasing.   
Time was always on Rowan’s mind. He looked down at his hands, of which he really only possessed one. The left was a tangle of rigid tendrils attached to an overgrown log of an arm. His right still retained a basic human form, though his flesh was plagued with woody striations that grew wider every day. It was a reminder of his dwindling time. And so the task at hand took utmost priority. 15 years had passed since the death of his father. 15 years she had generously allowed him to live, but not without a reminder of their deal creeping through his flesh at an imperceptible but sure rate. His arm was a tangle of tree branches all tightly wound together in the approximate shape of an oversized limb. His feet had followed the same transformation, and his body was streaked with the same oak colored tint. Even his face was a splattered mess of the freckles he’d always had and the new stripes of plant matter. One day there would be nothing left of him, just like the kingdom. How long would she take to reclaim him? Would she let the transformation spread until he was nothing but a tangle of roots and branches? Would the tendrils one day grow through his heart and snuff him out? Would he simply lose his grip on his human self and be more plant than animal? It wasn’t useful to run through grim outcomes, not that it was possible to resist. He did not know how or when his soul would be reclaimed, but it would be. There was no escaping a bargain with a Goddess.   
“Mom, can we rest for just a bit?” Esther spoke, breaking Rowan out of his anxious reverie. Rowan turned to face his daughter, bravely doing her best to keep up with her mother’s fast pace, but he’d pushed her past her limit without thinking.   
“Oh, I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t realize. I guess we have covered a lot of ground already, we can rest. I wanna make it to the kingdom’s edge by nightfall though, is that alright?” Rowan hated to make her travel like this. He watched as she slipped off her worn leather shoes and the feet underneath were red with blisters. Rowan’s heart ached. This was not what he wanted for his daughter. They should be at home in the Evergrowth, tending to the garden together or eating a home-cooked meal. What an idyllic little life they’d had. Perhaps Rowan had been selfish to insist on raising her himself for so long, but he wouldn’t change his choice if he could. After everything he’d gone through, raising his daughter was his reward, and it was worth it.   
“Oh Honey, your feet!” He cried, ashamed of himself for pushing them too far too fast.   
“It's not that bad.” She didn’t look up from her feet, a sure tell that she was lying.   
“You really have to tell me before it gets like this. We can take more rests.” He could tell she would try and argue with that, so he used his authoritative mom-voice, “We will take more rests.”   
“Mom I said it's not that bad. Don’t worry so much.”   
Esther, like her mother, was willful and proud. She didn’t show her weaknesses and she never wanted to slow anyone down. Even as a baby she rarely cried. And now, at 15 years old, she acted like a little adult, never wanting to ask for help. Being raised in the Evergrowth probably contributed to that, but that stubbornness traced back the family line back to her grandmother she was named after.  
Rowan sat next to her on the moss-covered stone, pulling her black locks behind her ear. She pushed his hand away.   
“Mom.”   
“What? I can’t fix your hair now? Don’t you need me for anything anymore?”   
“I can fix it myself.”   
` “I know. I know. I just can’t help it. It’s a mom thing. You’ll do it too one day, if you ever have kids.”   
“Yea.” Esther shrugged, rubbing her ankles. She threw her head back, letting the tips of her hair brush the moss of the rock.   
“Let me carry you the rest of the way? How about that?” Rowan asked.   
“I’m not a baby anymore, I don’t need to be carried. I can walk.”   
Rowan smiled at how much she reminded him of himself at her age. So willful and eager to prove herself, yet so innocent. She still had childhood left and he wouldn’t let it be taken away like his had been. If he wasn’t going to be around to protect her, he’d find someone who would. That’s why they were here. Rowan’s left arm had started sprouting leaves last month. It scared him into finally searching for Esther’s new home. As much as he hated to part with her, the thought of him suddenly passing on, to leave her to fend for herself in the depths of the Evergrowth? She was a tough kid but she couldn’t live down there all alone. Without her mother’s protection, she would have to live in the somewhat safer remnants of the kingdom and the borderlands, where Rowan still had some allies and friends.   
“Just let me, Esther. Please?” Rowan said with pleading eyes.   
Esther stuck out her upper lip with reflexive defiance but relented, “Fine.” She might have inherited a stubbornness, but she had a big heart too, she knew what this meant to her mother.   
“I love you, darling.”   
She only grunted in response.

When they started moving again, it was with Esther clinging to Rowan’s back, secured in place by woody tendrils. She was a rail-thin girl, and not difficult to carry. The added strength of Rowan’s curse helped to. It was a slower pace, but they were able to continue on. Rowan figured they could reach the borderlands by nightfall.  
It had been so long since he’d seen the kingdom. From what he’d heard from the few allies he had in the Evergrowth he knew that it was mostly a hollow shell now. There were still plenty of people, it had only been 40 years since the Barren Plague had fallen upon humanity. Ever merciful, the Goddess had granted the human race a slow quiet death. There would be no bloodshed, only old age. Save for all the violence that had erupted in the kingdom’s final years. A society falling apart, an aging population, a dead king, and vanished princes. It would have been chaos, everything would have fallen apart no matter how it unfolded. The people had split into a plethora of militant tribes, fighting for dwindling resources while there were still young bodies able to fight. Even when the king was alive, when Rowan lived in the palace, the kingdom was splitting at the seams. People were wise enough to see calamity coming, and few were honestly confident in the king’s plan. His iron rule was the only thing holding everything together. With his death, came the death of the last human empire. Rowan knew he could not be blamed. It was inevitable. Whether he killed his father or not, the kingdom was doomed. And with all he had been through, who could blame him? But it didn’t stop him from feeling a pang of guilt as he stepped out into the silent borderlands.   
It was entirely different from the Evergrowth. Here was where the forest suddenly ended and gave way to a couple miles of grassy hills, decorated with the dead and scorched trunks of so many trees, stabbing out of the landscape like thousands of black thorns. There were young trees growing as well, now that the Imperial army was no longer around to keep the land cleared, but most of the border was dominated by thick yellow grasses and bare grey stone. The sun beat down uninhibited here, and both Rowan and Esther initially recoiled from its light. Had they arrived midday, it would have been worse, but even now, as it set on the horizon behind the kingdom, it cast more light out here than it ever did in the depths of the Evergrowth.   
“I can walk again now,” Esther said, “if you want…” she added. Much as she valued her independence, she was also awfully tired. Resting on Rowan’s back in her little cradle of vines, though infantilizing, was pleasant. Rowan could tell she was worn out. He himself was beginning to feel the ache of the distance traveled. Perhaps here could be their resting spot for the night.   
“We can stop here, we both need some sleep, I think. We can slip into the kingdom in the early morning before the sun has come up.”   
“Are there monsters in the kingdom?” Esther had grown up in the land of monsters. She knew to avoid them, but she did not fear most.   
“Maybe. There didn’t used to be, but… I don’t know anymore. Everything has changed since before you were born. The kingdom is a ghost town now. But it’s not just monsters, stay away from any people you see too. They might be even worse.”   
Esther nodded, “So your friends, the ones you’re going to leave me with, are they humans or monsters?”   
Rowan frowned at the sting of her words. He’d tried to hide it at first, but Esther was no longer a little girl. She was clever. She’d known the purpose of this journey for a while now.  
“Honey… It’s for your safety. I can’t-”  
“I know, I know. You’ve told me.”   
“I’m sorry, Esther.” 

They spotted an old watchpost, little more than a box for soldiers to sit in and monitor the forest’s edge out of sight. It would be their home for the night, shielding them from view as they slept. It was dangerous to be out in the open like this. The feeling of vulnerability prickled at Rowan’s skin. So close to the kingdom, without the cloak of the forest, it was risky. At the very least, the sun had set now, granting them the cover of darkness. Esther did not speak as he carried her to the watchpost, only sulking with her chin on his shoulder. They’d had the conversation enough times that their feelings could be communicated in just a few words now. Neither liked the situation, but neither had the power to change it. So they trudged on, though Esther had not completely given up her occasional protests.   
The door to the watchpost had collapsed into a pile of rotted wood and rubble, so Rowan had to make another way in. It was a fairly simple procedure, utilizing a bit of the power granted to him as part of his bargain. He’d learned long ago that little could resist the force of growing roots. Earth, stone, metal, or even flesh could be torn asunder. And while this was usually a slow process, taking years for roots to grow even a few inches, Rowan was gifted with the power to speed things up a bit. He raised his left ‘hand’, the tangle of plant tendrils, and pressed it into the wall. After waiting for Esther to step back, he willed it to grow. In a single instant, the bundle untangled and grew throughout a door-sized section of the wall, woody vines growing through the stonework like it was butter. In the blink of an eye, he had riddled the wall with enough damage that a chunk of it came crashing down, allowing him and Esther entry. His tendrils retracted back to him, resuming the approximate shape of an arm. Once inside, he willed them again to grow, this time not destructively, but creatively. The mass grew and split and attached itself to two opposite sides of the room and formed a woven hammock between. It had taken years for Rowan to learn that trick. It was easy now. He winced as he snapped off his arm from the hammock, but it regrew just a moment after. Esther was already crawling into the makeshift bed.   
She didn’t seem inclined to speak anymore as they lay there, Rowan cradling her head on his chest. He didn’t blame her. She was exhausted and there must have been a lot on her mind. He understood she was probably mad at him. He could live with that if he had to. Her safety came first. But after he thought she had fallen asleep, she utterly softly,   
“I love you, mom.”   
“I love you too, darling.”   
And with that bit of sweetness in his mind, he drifted off to sleep. 

That night he dreamed. It was a dream he’d had before. One that found its way into his head over and over again. He was in the halls of the palace. The old palace, just before everything in the kingdom truly fell apart. There were still tapestries hanging on the walls, lit torches, a dwindling number of loyal guards. In his dream it was night. He flew past streams of silver moonlight shining through the windows as he ran. He was running as fast as he could. Praying there would be no guard every time he turned a corner. His left hand, still flesh back then, was bloody. His father’s blood. So much of it. He’d never seen so much blood in his life. It coated everything up to his elbow. Hot tears tickled his cheeks as guilt overwhelmed him. But this was not a time to feel guilty. Perhaps later he could stop to cry, but he had to keep running. For their sake, he had to run.   
In his other arm was a child. Fern was only 5 years old then. Behind him was a chain of three other boys with linked hands, struggling to keep pace with their eldest brother. Rowan stole a look back at them, not slowing down for an instant. Fern was in hysterics, wailing as they ran. It was useless to silence him, the whole palace would be awoken soon enough. Oleander simply looked baffled as to what was going on, Aster was practically catatonic, and Cedar was sobbing like Fern. What a mess they were. Only Aster could have known what fate they were running from.   
So close to the gates now. So close. Just a bit more and they would be out of the palace. Then they would keep running until they were out of the kingdom. And they would continue until they were a long long way away from home. The dream never went beyond the palace gates. It always stopped right before they escaped and Rowan would wake up in a cold sweat. The sight of Esther’s peaceful face next to him calmed him, and he put the memories out of his mind for another day. Today he returned to the kingdom.


End file.
